Mass production is
the name given to the method of producing goods in large quantities
at low cost per unit. But mass production, although allowing lower
prices, does not have to mean low-quality production. Instead,
mass-produced goods are standardized by means of
precision-manufactured, interchangeable parts. The mass production
process itself is characterized by mechanization to achieve high
volume, elaborate organization of materials flow through various
stages of manufacturing, careful supervision of quality standards,
and minute division of labour. To make it worthwhile, mass production
requires mass consumption. Until relatively recent times the only
large-scale demand for standardized, uniform products came from
military organizations. The major experiments that eventually led to
mass production were first performed under the aegis of the military.

Machine tools and interchangeable
parts The material basis for mass
production was laid by the development of the machine-tool
industry--that is, the making of machines to make machines. Though
some basic devices such as the woodworking lathe had existed for
centuries, their translation into industrial machine tools capable of
cutting and shaping hard metals to precise tolerances was brought
about by a series of 19th-century innovators, first in Britain and
later in the United States. With precision equipment, large numbers
of identical parts could be produced at low cost and with a small
work force.

The system of manufacture involving production of
many identical parts and their assembly into finished products came
to be called the American System, because it achieved its fullest
maturity in the United States. Although Eli Whitney has been given
credit for this development, his ideas had appeared earlier in
Sweden, France, and Britain and were being practiced in arms
factories in the United States. During the years 1802-08, for
example, the French émigré engineer Marc Brunel, while
working for the British Admiralty in the Portsmouth Dockyard, devised
a process for producing wooden pulley blocks by sequential machine
operations. Ten men, in place of 110 needed previously, were able to
make 160,000 pulley blocks per year. British manufacturers, however,
ignored Brunel's ideas, and it was not until London's Crystal Palace
exhibition of 1851 that British engineers, viewing exhibits of
machines used in the United States to produce interchangeable parts,
began to apply the system. By the third quarter of the 19th century,
the American System was employed in making small arms, clocks,
textile machinery, sewing machines, and a host of other industrial
products.

The assembly line.
Though prototypes of the assembly line can be traced to antiquity,
the true ancestor of this industrial technique was the 19th-century
meat-packing industry in Cincinnati, Ohio, and in Chicago, where
overhead trolleys were employed to convey carcasses from worker to
worker. When these trolleys were connected with chains and power was
used to move the carcasses past the workers at a steady pace, they
formed a true assembly line (or in effect a "disassembly" line in the
case of meat cutters). Stationary workers concentrated on one task,
performing it at a pace dictated by the machine, minimizing
unnecessary movement, and dramatically increasing productivity.

Drawing upon observations of the meat-packing
industry, the American automobile manufacturer Henry Ford designed an
assembly line that began operation in 1913. The result was a
remarkable reduction of manufacturing time for magneto flywheels from
20 minutes to five minutes. This success stimulated Ford to apply the
technique to chassis assembly. Under the old system, by which parts
were carried to a stationary assembly point, 12 1/2 man-hours were
required for each chassis. Using a rope to pull the chassis past
stockpiles of components, Ford cut labour time to six man-hours. With
improvements--a chain drive to power assembly-line movement,
stationary locations for the workmen, and work stations designed for
convenience and comfort--assembly time fell to 93 man-minutes by the
end of April 1914. Ford's methods drastically reduced the price of a
private automobile, bringing it within the reach of the common man.
(see also Index: automotive industry ) Ford's spectacular feats
forced both his competitors and his parts suppliers to initiate his
technique, and the assembly line spread through a large part of U.S.
industry, bringing dramatic gains in productivity and causing skilled
workers to be replaced with low-cost unskilled labour. Because the
pace of the assembly line was dictated by machines, the temptation
arose to accelerate the machines, forcing the workers to keep up.
Such speedups became a serious point of contention between labour and
management, while the dull, repetitive nature of many assembly-line
jobs bored employees, reducing their output.

Effects on the organization of
work. The development of mass production
transformed the organization of work in three important ways. First,
tasks were minutely subdivided and performed by unskilled workers, or
at least semiskilled workers, since much of the skill was built into
the machine. Second, manufacturing concerns grew to such size that a
large hierarchy of supervisors and managers became necessary. Third,
the increasing complexity of operations required employment of a
large management staff of accountants, engineers, chemists, and,
later, social psychologists, in addition to a large distribution and
sales force. Mass production also heightened the trend toward an
international division of labour. The huge new factories often needed
raw materials from abroad, while saturation of national markets led
to a search for customers overseas. Thus, some countries became
exporters of raw materials and importers of finished goods, while
others did the reverse.

In the 1970s and '80s some countries, particularly
in Asia and South America, that had hitherto been largely
agricultural and that had imported manufactured goods began
industrializing. The skills needed by workers on assembly-line tasks
were easily acquired, and standards of living in these developing
countries were so low that wages could be kept below those of the
already industrialized nations. Many large manufacturers in the
United States and elsewhere therefore began "outsourcing"--that is,
having parts made or whole products assembled in developing nations.
Consequently, those countries are rapidly becoming integrated into
the world economic community.